Bat Man

From prodigious wild child of Indian cricket to dependable world champion, Virat Kohli has taught himself big life lessons in record time. Urvashi Pant is bowled over

I am interviewing the best batsman in the world while perched on the edge of a bathtub. It’s an unusual venue, but I’m really quite comfortable seated on the makeshift cushion that Virat Kohli has gallantly fashioned for me with a couple of towels. We are in here because he has just wrapped up the ELLE cover shoot in a hotel suite in Mumbai and needs to rush off for dinner—but not before getting a haircut. So it’s over the steady hum of a trimmer—with Kohli facing the bathroom mirror—that I try to understand the transformation of Indian cricket’s enfant terrible into one of its finest representatives.

Kohli was drafted into the Indian cricket team three months short of his 20th birthday and almost immediately caught the attention of even the barely attentive cricket fan. To me, who believes in the Rahul Dravid way of gentlemanly cricket, Kohli seemed like the quintessential bad boy, living up to the clichés. He was the exciting new talent who had led India to victory in the Under-19 World Cup. There were tattoos on both his arms (he regrets a couple of them), he walked with a swagger and flaunted the unmistakable ‘Delhi attitude’. He was way too cocky for a newbie, his after-match partying ways induced eyerolls and why couldn’t he just tone down his on-field celebrations a mite?

For someone who had grown up watching the genteel exploits of Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Virender Sehwag, all with their distinct but understated brand of aggression, I couldn’t quite relate to Kohli’s OTT ways. There is something extremely satisfying about watching a batsman respond to a bouncer only by smashing the next ball out of the stands, or a bowler wordlessly crashing into the stumps of a batsman who has just hit him for three fours in a row.